I’ve been blogging since Jan 28, 2007. With the added posts from my other blogs, I have a total of 1537 posts – which means I’ve put up a post, on average, about one every 42 hours – or more often than once every other day.

If you’re interested in seeing my most popular posts, I recommend you go look at my Top 35 page – listing those which have had more than 1000 hits.

Now, I just saw that Challies (to whom I’m very grateful) just had a post get more than 750,000 hits, so I know that I shouldn’t consider any of mine viral.

Nevertheless, I did feel some joy this spring when my 5 Signs post (by far my biggest with 12,000+ hits) did so well, particularly since it dealt so heavily with the Gospel. To God be the glory.

I keep a word document where I keep track of possible Blog Post Subjects. Anytime I think of one and don’t have time to write it, I put it there for when I do have time. I just looked at this file and in there is this line:

SAS:Adventure

This could be translated: Remember to post that excellent Stand Alone Statement you thought up on the subject “Adventure”.

Unfortunately, I have no memory of what this was.

So could you just come up with one on your own? Make sure it’s clever and slightly earth-shattering and makes you think better of me as a blogger.

For those of you who actually go to my website (as opposed to subscribe and just see it on a reader) you may note a change in the look.

Since day one, my tagline has been this.

With An Eternal God, you can have it both ways. Anti-Calvinists say that they don’t like the idea that God is the Universal Puppetmaster. This description implies two ideas: (A) That God is in control of everything that happens, including each person’s choices. (B) That Humans are not responsible for anything they do. I reject one of these. See if you can guess which one. Please see my discussion on this in the ‘Both Ways’ category.

This has been a good intro – with content that helps a newcomer know where I’m am coming from theologically, but is somewhat unwieldy, to say the least. So I’ve changed it.

At 28 words (compared to 76), the new tagline is quite a bit more, shall we say, wieldy, if not as streamlined as the experts would recommend. What do you think? Should I just reduce it to the first sentence?

I’d like to think that this is a blog that often delves into biblical spirituality, and while I try to never be unbiblical in my not-directly-religious material, it is often very . . . not-directly-religious.

Still, I’m honored that this blog was placed on a list of “the more thoughtful, regularly updated blogs from Minnesota about faith”. I have to think that this is a direct result of my friendship with Bob over at Fundamentally Reformed (to whom I am grateful), who is a primary focus in the article.

But I have to think there are other Minnesota bloggers who might come over here and think, reasonably, Why is this on the list?

(1)That my ideas are unoriginal, and I know the original source. Generally speaking, I link to these sources to give them credit.

(2)My ideas have already been posted or written elsewhere, I just don’t know it and I think my ideas are original.

Certainly there are very few authentically new idea under the sun. And sure, some people have uniquebrains that can actually think up original ideas, but I have doubts about my own abilities to do this, especially considering how little research I do.

I’m just saying this as a disclaimer. Let the record show I make no claims of originality here.

And if anyone knows where someone has written a post with the same ideas as this one, let me know, because that would be awesomely self-referential if I could link to it.

I have been thinking that I should put up a post describing my categories. Here goes (to get to them choose from the list at the bottom left):

Both Ways: Describes and defends my Hyper-compatibleist twist of Calvinism. Since this is where I get the title of my blog, I really should do this more. It’s been more than a half year. I feel guilty. I’ll put one out soon.

And obviously the biggest response was from Vox Day, who couldn’t resist a little jab at my theology on the way. There were many lists given from his ilk in the comments and it was interesting to see how the format evolved as the day went.

And I’m sure I’ve missed a few. In any case, all of these worked together to put me at # 42 at the wordpress growing blogs list for one day. I’ve hit the big time!

Just added a link to Abraham Piper’s new blog – 22Words, a good name since it describes every post that he makes (not counting the post’s title). Quite clever (Somewhat Haikuish) , on several subjects – Check it out.

Subheading 1 – Evidently, if anyone on the internet googles anything with “Puppet” – it comes to me:
* MAKING A WOOKIE PUPPET
* What does the bible say about puppets
* Armor of god puppets
* hippopotamus puppet bath dollar store
* conclusion of puppet
* brickhouse betty stolen by the puppet
* mate, darn and make puppets
This last one was searched (sought?) for today – and in all of Google, my blog is at the top of the list for it.

Subheading 2 – Also “Poems”
* poems about been thankful for employees
* poems about Woodticks
And the best poem search . ..
* Revenge poems that rythme with Debbie
Any luck with that one, I wonder?

A few questions arise from this one, to wit:
Is it a cry for help or just a rhetorical exclamation?
What did his/her kids do to provoke such an outburst?
Is that a misspelling or did the searcher really hope to invoke the help of a lesser-known pagan deer god?

I have already mentioned that I am (now more than ten years!) a database guy in Corporate America. Back in the late 90’s I had a twice monthly job of loading a certain database (our Redbrick database) that was used by people in my department. They all wanted to know as soon as the data was updated, so when I had run the job, I sent out a note that said something like “The Redbrick Data has been loaded for January – You may query at will.”

One month, the day that I was sending out this note was the day after a departmental party in which we had given each other white elephant gifts. So when I sent out the note, I positioned the “Redbrick Data” message in the middle of a story which included many of the items that had been given. People wrote back that they appreciated it.

So after that I started to put stories around all of the Redbrick update messages. I created a fictional character named Ogden Fenfert, who was himself a database programmer, did odd things, and occasionally met famous people. Most of the story worked with Ogden as the main character.

I continued to get nice comments from people (my boss’s boss one told me that she laughed until she cried) so I continued to write them. Ogden went on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire”, was recruited by Bill Gates, had his own radio program (“Optimizing with Ogden”) and spoke at an elementary school career day with a football player from the XFL.

Fortunately, (and unfortunately) we replaced this system with a more automated process which no longer needed a manual load, so I no longer write them. But it was fun while it lasted. For a while there I was getting paid (and complimented) to do creative writing.

As I look back at them, many of them don’t work in this setting because they are so filled with inside jokes. But some of them do, and I’m posting them here. As always, I appreciate feedback.

* As I started out, I wrote with the hope that I wouldn’t be embarrassed in later months by the first few weeks of posts. I am glad to report that I am not.

* Astute readers will note the leaving off of one repeating category and the addition of another. I pretty much have stop posting my Saturday Poems for the single reason that I don’t have that many previously written poems and I am currently not writing very many new poems. At least not one a week. I still have a few that I want to put up, eventually. And I’ll give an explanation of the Third Thursday Ogden stories fairly soon.

* I have wondered if I would been able to keep up the one-a-day pace, but this hasn’t really been a problem. A few times I have wondered what I am going to put up the next day, but something always comes to mind.

* I regret that I haven’t done as much with the Free Will/ God Sovereignty Compatibleism (Both Ways) discussion as I should. A goal for this blog has always been to glorify God and talking theology does this better than Calvin&Hobbes Friday Everythings, for example.

* I always appreciate commenter input, positive and negative.

* I have been thankful every time that people have linked to me, as has happened today by the Evangelical Outpost and a week ago by Vox. I wouldn’t really have a blog except for these referrals.

* If you want to describe the many ways that your life has been changed for the positive as a result of reading this blog, the comment section here is the place to do it.

Okay, I am ignorant about these thing, so I don’t really know how it happened, but I found this interesting. Someone got to my page from a google translation page (shown at the bottom, but you can get to it here). As it turns out, this is the translation for my Bruce Willis Friday Everything.

I could do a little studying and find out what a person would have to do to get this (as well as what language it is – Japanese? Chinese?) but technical research is not really what the Responsible Puppet is about.

What it is about (at least on a small level) is pointing out interesting things. What I find interesting is that there is apparently no <chinese> word for ‘Calvinists’, ‘Puppetmaster’ or, surprisingly ‘Jerkweed’

If you’re the person who did this, let me know. I’d be interested in finding out your goals in making it.

Astute readers may have noted that it is impossible for all of these very divergent lists to include “Everything I Ever Needed To Know”. This suggests that either I am a nonsense peddler (crazy or deliberately and obviously lying) or that I am not really serious in my title. I’ll leave this for the reader to decide.

For the most part, I try to populate these documents not just with good quotes from the source – Rather, I try to choose only those statements from the sources that sound like they are giving advice, or making a universal truth. As I look back at the Princess Bride Everythings, however, I see that I have made some exceptions.

Another thing that astute readers may have noted is that I have in mind varying degrees of agreement with each of these lists. Obviously, I agree with all of the statements from the Biblical Book Everythings. Obviously, I don’t agree with everything in the Spinal Tap Everything. I was pleased to see that I agree with everything in all six of the Lord of The Rings Everythings, except for one: “Nothing is evil from the beginning” (I suppose it depends on your definitions of ‘evil’).

Ever since the beginning, I have not been completely pleased with what I call them, since the category is (of course) inspired by the original Kindergarten Everything. This original, while conceptually creative, has two problems: (1) It is completely cloying, (2) Parodies of it has been really, really overdone (not so much lately, but that’s only because would-be authors (even bad ones) have seen that it has been overdone.

For this reason, I have toyed with the idea of changing the name to something more cool sounding, but I’m not sure what I would change it to. I am open to suggestions.

Blachr has told me outright more than once that renaming isn’t good enough – I should stop them altogether. Request Denied!

Steve over at Careful Thought has pointed out here (more than once) my inadequacies in spelling the name of followers of the historical foe of Calvinism (or however you want to describe them). Now Bob (who is currently happy about the most recent Huckabee success, as am I) over at Fundamentally Reformed has sent over a link which gives evidence that my errors are not taken lightly. It’s quite funny.

Thus Spake Bob: He’s always talking idly and casually in a friendly way. And he’s not out to gain anything either. His blog is interesting and varied, with the occasional attempt at a Calvinist debate. I chat with him at church on Sundays and Wednesdays, and we keep up with each other’s blogs too. I think you’ll find his blog interesting and often useful.

Not out to gain anything? Well, I guess that depends on your definition of Anything. I also note the judicial usage of the word “attempt”.

I have found that it is wise to consider trusting an idea that comes from two relatively non-connected sources. My wife and my Mom, for example, don’t always agree, so when I am undecided on a decision we are trying to make, and both of them have an opinion, and they agree with each other, I am relieved. Because if they agree with each other, it’s a pretty good bet that they are right.

Another example of this is when Debbie and I were newly married, within a few weeks two former roommates of mine (both who knew me well but didn’t really know each other) both commented that I was a person who rarely complained. (This was 12 years ago, mind you.) Sometimes a person is unsure whether to trust a compliment. This time, because it came from two sources, I trusted it. So did my wife and I was grateful for their words.*

The flip side of this is when two disparate sources think you are wrong. This means it’s time to reconsider and it happened to me on Monday after my post about less important activities.

Marie, generally a thoughtful person, commented, cordially, but her message was clear: I was mistaken. Okay. Hmmm. I wrote a quick rebuttal and hoped it would help me stop wondering if I had written an unwise post. Nope.

So I walked over and showed the post and the comments to BlaChr, who never has any qualms about stating that I am crazy and nor did he, in this case, show any hesitancy to state that this was a wrong-minded post. (He took especially exception to the personal hygiene items on the list, to wit: “Why you gotta hate on being clean?”) (And he suggested one that I had missed: Video Games)

Hmmm.

So I brought it home and showed it to my wife who was, I state with zero pride, somewhat angered by my post. She would like me to make it clear, for example, that she has our kids dust once a week, and she does iron and we do vacuum more than once every half year. Indeed, now that I think about it, I vacuumed on Saturday.

I’d like to hide behind the idea that I was intentionally overt exaggerating (like you do) and that the astute reader would know this, but (at least) three usually astute readers didn’t enjoy the post’s subtle humor. To say the least.

So . . . what to do now? I think I can say that my main point is still valid: There are things that people do that keep them from doing more important things. But maybe I was a bit overzealous.

So, how’s this for a new list?:

6 Time-users which, if you do one of them, (in Jamsco’s Opinion, but he in no way thinks this list is universal, complete or decisive) (and he readily admits that he wastes his time regularly (and perhaps if anyone reading this would care to comment with some additions to the list, maybe he, too, would be forced to rethink his priorities a little)) should, perhaps, cause you to pause and wonder if doing the thing less will enable you to glorify God in a more real way:

1. You play video games, like, a lot.
2. You wash your car more than once a week (with an exemption if you live in a really dusty environment)
3. You watch more than, say . . . 5 hours of TV a week.
4. You golf.
5. You read fame magazines.
6. You dust more than once every half day.

But I don’t know. Is 6 enough to make a list worth reading?

* Guys, if you want to do a friend a favor, make nice comments about him within earshot of the girl he is trying to impress.